madjellyfish

The first season but slightly to the left

I should start this out by saying that, like the first season, I still don't know whether I actually liked the show or not. I feel like I might as well review both seasons together cause the season 2 feels more like the fever dream version of season 1. The parallels aren't so much uncanny as they are annoying, but they are plentiful.

(The rest of this is all spoilers so don't read beyond this point if you don't wanna know what happens.)



We start with Sera (the only character that actually got some character development, though it kind of starts and ends with being a little more mature and confident) meeting Tokai's twin (who is somehow also a crazy surgeon genious and gets called a devil) and he falls right back into old patterns, trailing after him like a puppy and being not-so-gently bullied into becoming a better surgeon in turn.
Everyone else is exactly the same, sometimes to kind of sad degrees. There is one notable new character, a korean exchange resident and he's actually quite alright.
Neko is Neko (though she levels up to doctor because the show apparently finally realised that female doctors exist - shocker, I know).
Miwa's only change is that she gets involved in the plot more.
Takashina, though with a certain self-aware irony, is right back to two-timing and back-stabbing, though this time it's entirely his decision so at least there's that going for him.
Saeki is shockingly unchanged, kind of the bad guy but never really, very little logic to his actions and provocations of all other characters, and like in the first season he conveniently gets to redeem himself at the end with a tragic backstory and a noble cause that goes completely against the way he normally acts with no explanation for the weird dissonance. The fact that both Tokai and Amagi think he did something wrong and framed their respective father figures for it, only to find out that he wasn't actually at fault and everything they were mad about was a misunderstanding, only to then be saved during a surgery by Saeki's help (that they shouldn't rightfully have needed) is the greatest injustice done to the twins imo. The fact that he has the audacity to be shocked at the end that he didn't get voted director after antagonising everyone, even those who were on his side, is actually hilarious.
The villains this time seem to have been on the way to an over the top anime adaptation, but they took a wrong turn and ended up here instead. Cartoonish doesn't do it justice. And it's every. single. one. of. them.

Plot wise it's really season one but with more dramatic flair, Amagi's mentorship of Sera a little more flamboyant that Tokai's but otherwise unchanged in dynamics, Saeki's fight with some other important dude over a chairman position, the machine vs. human debate for the medical cases and whatever kind of confusing, emotionally charged mess Saeki's relationship with the twins is. It's one messed up family and while he seems to have good intentions, Saeki's involvement manages to make it worse at every corner.
We also completely abandon realism with our public show performance surgeries but we weren't big on that in the first season so that was actually kind of easy to get used to. The show is so predictable it kind of hurts, with very few unexpected surprises.

None of this sounds like I enjoyed myself. But somehow, shockingly, I did. It wasn't because of the original and tight storywriting for sure, but somehow the characters have grown on me and the acting (with notable exception from the villains, though they seem to have been intended that way) was solid throughout. The relationship dynamics, though recycled, weren't any less amusing to watch the second time around and the last 15 minutes ripped me to absolute emotional shreds as intended so that's that I guess.

I rated it 8.5 mostly for nostalgia but also for the fact that despite all the objectively bad parts I still ended up enjoying it. The rating I gave here has about as much logic behind it as Saeki's behaviour, so it felt fitting somehow. This review probably wasn't very helpful but it sufficiently conveyed my (conflicted) emotions about the show so do with that what you will. I hope you watch it and feel as confused as I do.

Read More

Somewhat weak case but well presented

I really liked the first season of the show so I was looking forward to the movie a lot. It wasn't quite what I expected and it didn't really feel like something that needed a whole movie dedicated to it, as far as the importance to the overarching plot of the show is concerned (the connection to Garo was flimsy at best), but it shared enough of the same vibes the first season had to be an enjoyable watch.

(Spoilers beyond this part!!)

Pros:

- Now while I said that it felt weird that this particular case got a movie by itself, it defenitely benefitted from the length and detail afforded to it by the movie format. It was very dedicated to setting up the right atmosphere and giving the characters time to show or process their emotions, something that might not have been possible time wise, had it been in the episodic format of the show.

- Totono as a character was exactly as I have come to know and love him in season one, so no surprises there. It really did feel a lot like a faithful continuation of the story and while some of his 'human nature rants' as I like to call them felt a little out of nowhere, they did manage to tie those into the story as well in the end. Did they sound a little abrubtly preachy? Yes, but not really more so than during the show, so it wasn't really unexpected. The bit about therapy at the end I especially support, the whole family shoud really get some by the end of this...

- There was no over the top questionable acting from any of the characters, but there were some standout performances for me. Shioji's acrtess didn't shine much during the normal or happy scenes of her character but she really nailed the emotional scenes. Be it the moody teenage angst or the heartbreaking grief at the end, as soon as she got to portray more complex emotions she really stole the scene! Same goes for the murderer, who was bland throughout (probably by design) but gave a quite convincing and nuanced performance during his arrest. The way he petulantly started lashing out at everyone and how his whole demeanor changed was as unexpected as it was good. It showed how skewed and unstable the character really was below his unremarkable appearance.

Cons:

- By far the weakest part of this movie (and my biggest gripe with it) was the plot. Or rather the motivation for the antagonists that brought about the plot. While killing people who looked a certain way that didn't fit in with the original family might have made sense during the first few generations to avoid suspicion, there really was no point to keep doing it in modern times. It could be easily explained through people marrying into the family and in turn, continuing the murders based on appearnace was incredibly suspicious. It just makes no sense that the people involved would't have thought of that at all, so it seems really contrived, especially since the parents digging into the story should have been enough motive to keep the murders and therefore the plot going.

- This might be a personal problem from watching too many similar shows but the 'bad guy' was really predictable. As soon as a character shows up that doesn't really have to be there story wise who also acts too friendly or unremarkable it immediatly seems suspicious to me, but this is more of a pet peeve than anything :P

- I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked this movie much as a standalone, so it really is more like an extra long episode for fans of the show than anything else. The story itself doesn't need any prior knowledge from the first season, but Totono's character and his oddities are well established throught he prior episodes, so both the way he acts and the way the case unfolds might seem a little odd if you haven't gotten used to it from the show.
Mostly though it's that the case itself isn't really interesting enough to carry the whole movie, so unless you're a fan of the show (or at least another format of mystery to iunakare) I wouldn't really recommend watching.

TLDR: If you liked the show you'll probably like the movie, unless you're very particular about the case having to make sense, then you probably won't. It wasn't outstanding but if you just want to see Totono be Totono then it's an easy watch and a good way to pass the time while waiting for the second season.

Read More

Mostly romance with a pinch of mystery

I don't usually write reviews for shows I haven't finished watching, but when I started writing a comment I realised it was getting waaay to long so a review it is instead. While only the first 7 episodes have come out, this won't really influence my review so it should be fine to post it now. Mostly no concrete spoilers but I'm still discussing plot so proceed with caution.


First things first, it's... entertaining? I want to say that it's at least fun to watch and by now it's pretty clear that the plot is just there as a stage and a pretext for putting the main characters in ridiculous situations to further their relationship, so I feel it's not fair to judge the show by what it's cleary not putting all that much focus on. It's still an easy watch, probably even more so for people who came for the actors or for the romance, so this isn't meant as a critique of the show as a whole.

But having come for the mystery (this is on me, I didn't realise it was a BL cause I didn't watch the trailer and I skipped the intro - and even romance dramas sometimes feature well thought out plot beside the romance so I thought I'd stick around and give it a try), I just have to vent a bit about how little they're trying with the police investigation!

• These kids are disappearing and getting picked off one by one while they're apparently being under police surveillance? Where was the officer responsible for the guy in the garage when he died? That was right out in the open, even the brother stumbled in at the end...
• Why are they so fixated on the killer being one of the kids to the point where they won't even consider other leads, like other friends or family (cough, sus doc) that could have been told about what's happening with the avengers?
• They have handwritten letters, why has no one even come up with the idea of comparing the kids' handwriting with those?!

There's plenty handwavy police action going on here and I try to take into consideration that that's simply cause the case isn't actually that important other than the fact that it's happening, but these few things really took me out of the story while watching. I'm not even talking about their superhuman healing powers and terrible wound care, I feel those are par of the course for this genre ;)

On to the positive, the acting is actually pretty solid, from some more so that others, but overall there isn't anyone who makes this hard to watch for me. The actor who plays jade does a really good job at portraying emotions believably and his acting feels overall quite natural, and the actress who plays chereen does a really good job with crying scenes. The inspector appears a little wooden at times but it gets better with each episode and it's easy to overlook once you get used to it. I like that the other police officers get actively involved (when the show remembers that there's police work to do) and all of them perform well in the limited roles that they have, so there's nothing to criticise here either.
But who really surprised me was the korean drug boss who gave what I might even call a standout performance (reminding me at times of lee dong shik from beyond evil or han jae ho from the merciless, neither of which are villains per say but who sure know how to act the part). I didn't check to see if the actor is korean but he sure gave a solid korean style villain performance in the rather short scene he had. Maybe I just wasn't expecting a side character to keep up with the main roles or even outplay them (given that this kind of drama doesn't really call for that sort of thing) but he did kind of steal the scene there ;)

All the rambling aside, if an entertaining romance with a police backdrop is all you're looking for, chances are you're going to enjoy this show. If you're looking for a well thought out mystery with police work that doesn't test your frustration tolerance, look elsewhere.
We're yet to see how the actual mystery part unfolds so I can't say much on that front, but they did put a lot of creativity and care in styling their murders (though definitely on the gory side and a little over the top at times) and they did genuinely manage to build up some suspence about what really happened between the college friends group. A little convoluted, sure, and allowed to play out with minimal police involvement (cause the cops are busy with other things, lol), but if the investigation isn't your focus you might actually enjoy the murder mystery part of this.

Read More